Howard could have told them how to go past a graveyard. Whistle. Keep all your fingers crossed. Say the Lord's Prayer. But it might be different tonight. There are breaches in the law on Halloween. Loopholes. He should have gone with them. When he'd gotten them safely past, he could have turned in at the gate and gone to lie down with Alice. Alice and Fred. His two favorite people, when you come right down to it. He thinks about walking down there now; he can make out the rounded tops of the stones among the half-bare trees. A little gust nudges him, stirring the dead leaves on the walk. He remembers Halloween—the feel of it, the freedom. Sometimes, when the leaves swirled up in the wind, you felt like you could fly. But not now; he's too heavy. And too tired to walk that far.

The ladder is still leaning against the house, half folded up. No sense in leaving it out there—kids will come along and steal it, most likely. He goes and tries to close it again. It refuses. Howard brings his analytical powers to bear. He sees the problem; the shelf, which sticks out on the opposite side from the steps, has to be folded up before the whole contraption will close. He opens it again and pushes up on the shelf. There are three words painted on the gray metal: "Not A Step." Howard snorts. Any damn fool can see it isn't a step. Hardly holds a gallon of paint, much less a man's weight.

But the words catch him, they seem to have a message. "Not A Step." Whose idea was it to put the ladder away, anyway? Martha's. She is always after him to give up on the house. To give up the house, period. First put the ladder away, then put the old man away, that's her idea. Well, not a step will he go in that direction. Not a step, your Honor, and furthermore he submits that it is against nature for a man to be ordered about by his daughter. That is a step he does not intend to take.

He goes into the house and finds the scraper where he left it in the bathroom. On the way out, he turns on the porch light and puts the bowl of Snickers outside the door. The sky is sagging like wet wool. It's cold, too. That's just as well, though - when you're working hard, you get hot.

Paint chips fall away in a little blizzard as Howard works the scraper across the clapboards, first up and down, then back and forth. After ten minutes he has to get down and move the ladder - a nuisance, a waste of time, with night falling and the wedding coming up. But he is quickly up again and working like a demon. Once or twice kids come up the driveway; he yells at them to take a Snickers.

The scraped patches advance across the front of the house like a parade. A horse, a motorcycle, a long bumpy one like a train. Howard scrapes away at the plume of smoke from the engine. He's going to take a wedding trip with Alice. She'll say they can't afford it, but what the hell. He's got the job with Fuller, Littlefield and she can teach school for a year or two. She was tickled when he showed her the house the other day. She said it was a gem. He likes that. The engagement ring wasn't much, but the house is a glittering gem for his bride. And they'll take a trip. Not a real big one this time, but sooner or later, they'll see the world together. Here's a patch like the Eiffel Tower, and here's a pyramid, and this is one of those idols with all the arms—India, China, wherever.